Tuesday, April 28, 2009

True Love and Other Disasters by Rachel Gibson

Rachel Gibson has been an auto buy for me. I loved Simply Irresistible and adore See Jane Score. (That last one is one of my favorite books.) I couldn't wait for her next book about the Seattle Chinooks hockey team, and I went through four books and her entire backlist waiting for it.

And I got it. There are not a lot of women's fiction based around the sport of hockey, and Deirdre Martin is the only other author I've been able to find. I'm not as big a fan of Martin's work, because I have a huge issue with a fictional New York City team that claims to be part of the Original Six teams in the NHL. (Make it more believable, please.) So far, Rachel Gibson had managed to avoid a lot of the mistakes by not having the hockey rink the center of her plots.

She deviated from this with True Love and Other Disasters. Faith Duffy inherits the Seattle Chinooks from her late husband, Virgil Duffy. Their marriage reminds me of Anna Nicole Smith with her billionaire. Faith had once been a stripper and then a Playmate before a marriage of convenience with Virgil. Faith wanted security, and Virgil wanted a trophy wife. His son, Landon, hates that Faith received the hockey team and will do what it takes to get it from her.

In her dealings with the team she runs into Tyson Savage, the captain of the Chinooks, fondly known as "The Saint." His sole goal is to win the Stanley Cup and doesn't want uncertainty about the team's ownership to get in his way. He fights his attraction to Faith, but before he knows it he has to fight with her to acknowledge their relationship.

I was going great with this book until the last few chapters, which focus on the NHL playoffs. Knowing about hockey as I do, there are a few glaring errors that grated on my nerves. For example:

Game One of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Seattle Chinooks was played on Seattle's ice...

Game Two was played in Mellon Arena on Pittsburgh Ice.

Excuse me? This is such an easy thing to look up! In the best of 7 series, the first two games are played at the arena of the highest seeded team of the two, then the next two games are played at the other team's arena. Game Five and Seven are played at the first team's arena. I know better, Ms. Gibson!

The second thing I read was this:

All four players were given three-minute penalties and sat out the last few minutes of the second period in the sin bin.

I can't recall of a single instance of a three-minute penalty. There are two-minute minors and even a four-minute if blood is involved from the penalty, but not a three minute penalty. Then she mentions that the teams went 3 on 3, which I have not heard of ever. I have witnessed many 5 on 4s, 5 on 3s, and 4 on 4s, but I can't think of a single time when both teams were depleted to that extent.

I really wanted to give this book a higher score, but I can't go above a C. These are mistakes that are easy to look up. If Ms. Gibson is using an old edition of Hockey for Dummies, she needs to upgrade to a version written after the lockout.